Blink and you'll miss it: can you really digest a whole book in 15 minutes?

Blinkist promises to condense the ‘key takeaways’ of popular nonfiction into short summaries. But does it work? And what is the point?

There is a moment in The Matrix when Keanu Reeves is lying in a chair, before having a cable plugged into his head to upload some information directly into his brain. He then announces, rather joylessly: “I know kung fu.” Here in the present, website Blinkist is presenting a middle ground to Neo’s setup, offering “the key takeaways” of more than 2,500 nonfiction books in text and audio formats to help you “fit reading into your life”.

Each “blink”, as no one will ever call them, is designed to be digested in about 15 minutes and, rather jarringly, opens with: “What’s in it for me?” as if there needs to be an end profit from reading except one’s own happiness. I tried to find out with five of this year’s bestsellers.

Continue reading...

from The Guardian https://ift.tt/2UupYNp
via
0 Comments